


I sought that which my soul holds dear

by knightinbrightfeathers



Series: a city without concept [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Race Changes, Character Study, F/F, Filipino Character, Israel, Israeli character(s), Jewish Character, Muslim Character, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 22:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10345581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinbrightfeathers/pseuds/knightinbrightfeathers
Summary: A look at Éponine and her love for Cosette.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains a lot of stuff that isn't a lot of people's cup of tea. I've placed the Amis in Israel, which is where I live, because I think they fit here just as well as they do in France or England or the US. They're a social justice group; they can change some shit.  
> This is a story about queer women of color who live in a difficult, complicated, tumultuous country. If you're not into it, leave. If you have questions or sincere critique or just want to read the story, stay.  
> (Before you read: Valjean's name has been changed because no Palestinian Muslim man is going to be called Jean Valjean. Gavroche's name has been shortened to an Israeli name. Everyone else gets to keep their name so that you recognize them.)  
> With thanks, as always, to rhien.

_In my bed, for weeks I sought_

_That which my soul holds dear and have not found it._

_I searched in all this lie-filled city and have not found it._

_The guards who wander the city found me and I have not found my love,_

_But I will not let him go until I bring him into my city,_

_To my mother's house, and to my room, to my bed._

 

 

'Hinech Yafa', Idan Raichel

 

 

 

 

There's a long list of things Éponine thinks need fixing in this tiny shitfuck of a country.  Given an opening, she's willing to expound at length about the educational system; the social workers who refuse to do anything about Gavri's situation; the meagre stipends her family got every month from the government, the ones that barely got them through the month.

Right now, she can think of no issue more pressing than the goddamned Israeli Railway. The train's been stalled for fifteen minutes in the middle of nowhere, and of course there's nowhere to sit. Her feet hurt.

She spares a glare for the four people in the train car that are listening to music without headphones - Eyal Golan, really? - and resists the urge to aim a kick at the kitbag blocking half the passage.

The train jerks into motion. Next stop, Tel Aviv.

-

Cosette lives in a beautiful old Arab house. Cosette also does not technically live in Tel Aviv. (When Grantaire is being particularly contrary, he will point out that Tel Aviv has swallowed all its suburbs, Chronos-like, and that you can hardly tell the difference between Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv and all the rest. It's a very non-Tel Avivian thing to say, an old opinion brought out to air when he's arguing with the GPS on his phone. But even Grantaire can't argue that Jaffa, with its old stone streets and cool alleyways, is synonymous to Tel Aviv, even if they are hyphenated.)

Late and tired from the oppressive damp heat of summer, Éponine rings the doorbell. She shifts from foot to foot, aware that she's sticky and that her hair is a disaster. Wearing her nice skirt was a mistake - it's too long for this weather, and her thighs are chafing.

"Hi!" Cosette greets her. She's barefoot, in shorts. Éponine is immediately jealous. "Come on, come in." She shuts the door behind Éponine and points to the neat row of shoes by the entrance. "Baba, Éponine is here!"

-

The band onstage is all right for a garage band in a country with no garages, and the bartender served with someone in the group, so they’re getting free drinks. All this means Éponine is in a good mood, so when Marius starts sighing over a girl across the bar, she doesn’t smack him upside the head.

Instead, she offers to go invite the girl over.

“Would you?” Marius asks, all doe-eyed wonder.

“God, Ép, please. So we don’t have to listen to Pontmercy whine anymore,” Feuilly groans.

“You’d all be helpless without me,” Éponine says. She downs her drink and gets up to a chorus of praise.

-

Cosette's father is huge, a bear of a man. Éponine herself is tall, thanks to her father's Yemen genes, but Jinan al-Juhani towers over her. Or he would, except that he is wrist-deep in a bowl of minced beef.

" _Ahalan_ , Éponine," he says. "It's good to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Éponine says.

Jinan smiles at her like she's a street cat he's coaxing near him. "Dinner isn't ready yet. Cosette, why don't you show her the house?"

"Okay. Come," Cosette says, dragging Éponine out of the kitchen and into the house itself. "First the garden. Baba tends it by himself."

"The garden last," Jinan says. "You'll track dirt everywhere, _habibti_."

-

Reciprocity is Éponine introducing Cosette to her siblings. Gavri already knows her, because he's always around, but he doesn't know her as Éponine's girlfriend, and Zelma's never met Cosette. So Éponine waits until Zelma has a weekend at home and drags her siblings out of the house on Friday morning.

They go to a café, sit around a table too small for all the little bowls of cheese and avocado and tahini that the waitress brings, and wait for Cosette to show up.

"Shit, your girlfriend's hot," Zelma says.

It's central Tel Aviv, so no one bats an eyelash, but Éponine glances around anyway. Cosette looks like she'd like to hold Éponine's hand, but refrains.

-

When Éponine first meets Enjolras, she wants to slap him across his stupid speechifying face. He's speaking about something, social change, the downtrodden masses of et cetera. He's blond and handsome and all his clothes are new, and his Hebrew is so precise it's like listening to the radio.

"Ashkanazi maniac, what does he understand about life," she mutters. "What happened, mom and dad didn't buy you the new iPhone?"

"He prefers Android, actually," says a tall, gangly boy with a kippa perched on his head. "Do you have Malka Beer?"

"No," Éponine says. "You with him?" She jerks her head towards the ranting Enjolras. She's never hated open mike night so much.

"Kind of," he says. "I'm his ride home."

"To Caesarea?" she asks.

"The Tel Aviv University dorms aren't exactly Caesarea."

(When Éponine first meets Combeferre, she judges his taste in beer, glasses, and clothing.)

-

"Do you want to go to Pride?" Cosette asks hesitantly.

Éponine thinks about the knifings last year, about the stupid singer the city brought in for the show, about how her siblings would be alone if she died, about how she's a Mizrahi Jewish girl dating a Muslim Filipino girl.

"Not really," she says.

-

Nothing is safe. They live in a country where she could get stabbed on the way back from work and it wouldn't really be news. The rockets from Gaza reach Tel Aviv now, not to mention Beer Sheva, where Éponine spends most of her time. If she drove an hour away from her apartment, she wouldn't be able to hold her girlfriend's hand in public. There's lead in her coffee, apparently.

Perhaps this should inspire Éponine to live freely and openly. Instead, she holds her keys in a death grip when she's walking home at night and never, ever kisses Cosette outside.

-

Galgalatz is playing the newest summer hit. It's painfully bad. Cosette sings along with it, under her breath.

"Put on Eco 99 FM," Éponine grumbles.

"It's a good song," Cosette protests.

"No it isn't."

"I'm driving," Cosette points out.

Éponine huffs a breath and folds her arms, pointedly glaring at the radio.

A few minutes later:

" _Mami_ , please let me change the station."

"Fine," Cosette says. She tunes into an Arab station, which fills the car with a mixture of static and rapid chatter. Éponine slaps her hand away, fighting her giggling girlfriend for control of the radio until she finds something that actually plays music.

“You are beautiful, my wife, your lips are scarlet thread,” Cosette sings tunelessly, drowning out the song.

-

The garden is beautiful. The walls containing it somehow make it seem like perfectly shaped artwork. Éponine watches Cosette worm her toes into the dirt, like she's taking root. For a moment she's inadequate, out of place; this is where Cosette was planted, where she bloomed.

Then the moment's passed. She brushes her wrist against Cosette's shoulder, drapes both arms around her. Cosette bends her head and kisses her fingers.

"Girls, dinner's ready," Jinan calls.

"Coming, Baba!" Cosette shouts.

"Wipe your feet!"

Cosette makes an indignant noise.

Éponine laughs, pressing the sound into Cosette's smooth, soft hair. She smells like flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! You've arrived at the end. If you have questions, I am happy to answer them.
> 
> Mizrahi: Jewish person of North African origin.  
> Ashkenazi: Jewish person of European origin. (White.)  
> Eyal Golan: singer. Popular. Not my cup of tea.  
> Ahalan: hello in Arabic.  
> Habibti: my dear in Arabic.  
> Mami: a Hebrew term of endearment.  
> Caesarea: rich people town.
> 
> Title and all song quotes from ["You are beautiful"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8lNNVrRUxU) by Idan Raichel, which is such an eposette song.


End file.
